If you are of a certain age then you may well remember Trauma, I certainly do! They are another of the seemingly endless list of bands having a further stab at things thirty years on from their inception. However, in Trauma's case they do have a little bit of history that people will latch onto and that is the one and only Cliff Burton (R.I.P.) was the bassist on their first demo. In an age when nuggets of info like that will invariably give the band more press space than whether their music is any good is a terrible shame and speaks volumes about the mindset of people today, but I am going to temper that by saying 'Rapture And Wrath', Trauma's second album, and their first since 'Scratch and Scream' in 1984 is actually a pretty decent slab of US Metal and NWOBHM!

Bands in this genre tend to live or die by the quality of the vocalist and that's no exception with Trauma. Original singer Donny Hillier is still at the helm and whilst his vocal delivery is certainly an acquired taste, being quite high pitched and warbly, he certainly fares better than many singers I've heard because he does mostly hit the notes he is aiming to sing and the ones he doesn't are not hideous. He's described in the blurb as a mix between Bruce Dickinson and Geoff Tate but I hope that's down to the style of music because he's not in their league. Having said that he's still much better than what Geoff Tate has become in recent years!

As for the rest of the band, well all of them have been around the block a few times, whether they are original members or not, so they all play to a good standard and the tunes themselves are well written and catchy. Trauma come across musically as Queensryche meets Diamond Head and Metal Church meets Black Sabbath although, as I always say, you are bound to hear many more influences and disagree entirely with my choices! There is a nice mix of heavy and melodic, the quieter passages in 'The Long Way Home' being a standout example. Here Hillier isn't pushing his voice and it works much better to these ears. 'Egypt' makes a quite big nod to Sabbath's 'Heaven & Hell' in the chorus and it's the track where the vocals work least well but opener 'Heart Of Stone', 'Under The Lights' and 'Don't Tread On Me' more than make up for that with great riffs, solos and choruses!

It might sound like I'm being a bit harsh with 'Rapture And Wrath', that's only because I listen to so much music and have masses of bands to compare Trauma to but this is certainly no bad album and after a thirty year break it's very welcoming to see them back releasing something that might not set the world alight, but will certainly see fans of this music sit up and take notice. Let's see if they can keep this going and do another album in a couple of years!